The Madison County Financial Management Committee met Monday morning to go over amendments to the 2014-2015 budget.

The committee approved all of the amendments, most of them concerning the Jackson-Madison County School System, which received several grants from state and federal departments and had unused funds from last year’s budget moved over to this year’s.

In total, the school system received or re-appropriated just over $2 million in 16 items.

“This is routine,” said Mike Nichols, the Madison County finance director. “We normally have that a little later in the fall, but they’ve got a program where they can see exactly what it is, so they put them all in this time. So it’s nothing new.”

The largest items included a $764,904 Title I grant the county received through its School Federal Projects grant and the $300,000 Carl Perkins Reserve Grant, which will help fund the Expanding Pathways to Ensure Success program.

Verna Ruffin, superintendent of the Jackson-Madison County School System, said that the grants are needed for the school system to work properly.

“If we did not receive the federal grants, we would be substantially below standards throughout the district,” Ruffin said. “Those federal grants help us to stay slightly competitive.”

Ruffin said that without grants such as the Carl Perkins Reserve Grant, there would be no career technology in the system, which would hurt students, she said.

The committee approved four other items Monday morning.

The Highway Department was approved to transfer $30,000 in funds for a correction in its budget.

Christy Little, the Madison County General Sessions judge for Division II, added $30,000 to her budget from a grant that will be for parent mediation and education in Juvenile Court.

The Madison County Sheriff’s Office requested and was given $8,015 to be used to purchase another vehicle for the department. The money will come out of the county’s capital fund.

The Sheriff’s Office also requested permission to move $77,677 around in its budget to cover in-service training and salaries that were not properly submitted in the original 2014-2015 budget.

Doug Stephenson, county commissioner for District Two, was in attendance Monday morning fielding questions and asking questions himself. Stephenson recently submitted his resignation letter to the county so that he could accept a job working for the Health Department.

The County Commission will vote to accept or deny Stephenson’s resignation at its next meeting Aug. 18. Until then, Stephenson said that he can still serve on committees, including the Financial Management Committee.

Stephenson is up for re-election and is running unopposed. He said that once he is re-elected he probably would not attempt to be put back on the committees where he currently serves.

“I don’t want there to be any appearance of conflict of interest of things,” Stephenson said. “We’ll just see how it goes and see where I can help. That’s what I want to do.”